


Lo tems vai en ven e vire

by middlemarch



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: A more scholarly Diana, Banter, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Romance, Scents & Smells, Vampires, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 00:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20300620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Matthew wants an explanation.





	Lo tems vai en ven e vire

“Why didn’t you tell Maman the truth, Diana?” 

“What do you mean?” she said, looking genuinely confused. She was tired after the journey, after the recent upheaval in her life, but still her skin glowed and her eyes were bright. It was a great joy simply to look at her, an unparalleled delight.

“Why didn’t you tell her you speak French? And Latin and Italian, German and Greek,” Matthew said.

“And Arabic,” Diana added. “Though it’s a little rusty, I’ll admit.” 

Matthew laughed, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He had only been thinking of her as a creature, a mysteriously powerful witch, fresh, warm, so very warm; he had forgotten she was a historian and a scholar. 

“So why then did you not say something?”

“Matthew, I am young and I’m a witch, but I’m not a complete naif,” Diana said. He raised an eyebrow. “There was nothing to be gained by challenging your mother—and everything to lose. I’ve begun to understand more what that would mean to me now.” She stayed where she was but the words were an embrace of their own.

“So, a lie of omission?”

“Not a lie, not really. I don’t speak Occitan,” she said, shrugging. “And I was raised in a house of women, raised to have manners appropriate to any occasion. It would be the height of rudeness to contradict my hostess. It would be worse than rude, it would be foolish.”

“Foolish?”

“To make you mother my enemy. She’s already pre-disposed to dislike me because I am a witch. I don’t need to give her an independent, valid reason. And I don’t need to do anything that might make you uncomfortable in your own home,” Diana said.

“You cannot do that,” Matthew said, taking her hand in his. “Not even if you tried.”

“I think you underestimate me. I’m sure I could make things very unpleasant for you, if I put my mind to it,” Diana said smartly.

“With your magic?” Matthew said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t need magic,” Diana said airily. 

“That sounds like a warning.” He smelled rosemary, mint, cypress; gunpowder, adjuma, absinthe. Diana leaned into him and breathed softly against the open neck of his jumper. 

“Does it? How satisfying,” she said, then startled him by singing in a throaty contralto “_A chantar m'er de so qu'eu no volria…_” Lyrics he hadn’t heard in hundreds of years, the immediate evocation of his past, the lost times.

“You said you didn’t speak Occitan!”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t sing. I’m a scholar, I do thorough research on every topic that interests me. You cannot think that didn’t include you, Matthew,” she said. 

“I think I see why the book came when you called for it,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> So obviously, the scene where Ysabeau and Diana meet annoyed me. Diana has a PhD and is a professor at Yale, visiting professor at Oxford. She should be able to speak/read multiple languages. I have now fixed that scene :)
> 
> The title is from an Occitan love poem by Bernat de Ventedorn, roughly translated as "Time runs and goes away and turns." Diana sings the only surviving song by Beatritz de Dia, "A chanter m'er."


End file.
